CHAPTER 35
A Queen’s Verdict
MEHER
The heavy doors of the council chamber creak open before me, and for the first time since I entered this palace as his wife, I step inside.
I’ve walked past this room countless times.
I’ve paused outside its grand arches, watching officials stride in and out, their footsteps echoing off the marble floor like drumbeats of decisions that shaped kingdoms. But today is different.
Today, I am not a bystander. I am not the girl peeking from the hallway, invisible in silks too fine for her skin.
Today, I am sitting inside.
Sitara is beside me, her hands restless, twisting the golden rings on her slender fingers.
I squeeze her hand, a silent anchor, though I feel like I’m the one drowning.
She glances at me with wide, anxious eyes, and I offer her the smallest of smiles.
Neither of us truly believes it, but it’s something to hold on to.
I don’t look at Rajmata. I can’t.
I know if I do, words will spill from me—sharp, bitter, words that will cut, and though part of me would find satisfaction in that, another part refuses.
Because this… this is not just about me.
This is their mother. The woman who raised them, even if she never mothered him.
Humanity, I remind myself. Hold on to it.
Raja-sa enters with the kind of stillness that carries power.
His presence fills the chamber before his words do.
His siblings straighten—Veeraj with his defiant tilt of chin, Vihaan with quiet tension, Sitara with her trembling hands.
My pulse jumps as his gaze sweeps across the table, lingering on me for a beat too long.
It feels like he draws strength from that pause. From me.
When he finally speaks, his voice is steady, commanding, but edged with weariness.
“I am not going to waste anyone’s time here repeating why we are gathered. We all know.”
He exhales deeply, his eyes cutting to Rajmata. I hear the faintest scoff from her, like she is already unimpressed, already dismissing him.
“We have concrete proof of your actions, Rajmata,” he continues, each word precise, measured. “And as your king, I cannot let you disrespect my queen and walk free.”
That’s when she laughs. A cold, bitter scoff that ricochets against the stone walls.
“Queen?” she spits, her voice dripping venom. “You call her a queen? A mere dancer? This… nobody?”
The words slap against my skin, sting sharper because they’re not new.
They are echoes of every whisper I’ve heard since stepping into this palace.
I feel Sitara tense beside me, her hand clamping around mine.
I clench my jaw, staring down at the polished table rather than meeting Rajmata’s gaze.
If I look, I will speak. If I speak, I will break.
“Enough!” Raja-sa’s voice cracks like thunder across the chamber. He doesn’t shout often, but when he does, the ground itself seems to tremble. “You had your chance to speak. Do not test my patience.”
His glare silences her. Even Rajmata lowers her eyes, if only for a fraction of a second.
And then, his gaze shifts to me.
My chest tightens. His eyes soften as they land on me, like the weight of his anger evaporates when I am his focus. For one fragile moment, it’s just us. The room fades, the shadows of history and betrayal fade, and all I see is him.
“I would like Maharani,” he says, his voice steady, “to decide the punishment. And to announce it.”
The chamber stills. All eyes swing toward me.
My breath catches. I already told him. I told him last night, when it was just the two of us, when his head was in my lap and his voice trembled with wounds he tried to hide. Why is he asking me to repeat it now?
I glance at Sitara, whose face is pale but supportive. At Veeraj, who looks torn between loyalty and denial. At Vihaan, whose gaze flickers with quiet understanding. Finally, I look back at him.
“I would like…” My voice wavers but I steady it. “To forgive her.”
The words hang in the air. Firm. Final.
Rajmata laughs again, bitter and sharp. “You? Forgive me?” she sneers, like the very thought is absurd.
One look from him—just one—and she falls silent.
“Okay,” he says softly, turning to me again. “I respect your decision.”
Relief pricks my chest—until he continues.
“However, she has done wrong to me, too.”
I frown, startled, watching him rise slowly from his chair.
“I am the king,” he says, his voice ringing with iron. “She has not only betrayed me but attempted, out of personal hatred, to defame the crown. That cannot be forgiven. Not by me.”
Rajmata stiffens. The chamber tightens with tension.
“I hereby strip you of any and every right over the business and politics of the royal family. You will have no say in what the crown does from this day forward. You may remain in this palace, because my siblings have committed no crime that I should punish them by tearing their mother away. But remember this—” his voice sharpens like steel drawn from a sheath “—if I hear another word, another conspiracy, against me, against the queen, against the crown—you will be moved to the royal villa, and you will spend the rest of your life there. Alone.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
I stare at him, my heart thundering in my chest. And then realization crashes over me.
He wasn’t putting this burden on me. He was lifting it from me.
By asking me here, in front of them, to repeat what I said in private, he makes sure no finger ever points at me.
That none of his siblings can ever say I decided alone, that Meher punished our mother.
He is shielding me even as he gives me a voice.
He made me speak first—not to trap me, not to burden me—but to protect me. To ensure no one, not even his siblings, could ever accuse me of cruelty. He took the weight on himself. He carried the punishment on his shoulders, as king, as son, so that my hands would remain clean.
And yet, he still honored my words. Still respected my forgiveness, even when he chose differently.
My eyes sting. My chest aches.
He turns to me then, and when his gaze meets mine, the storm in me quiets. He smiles softly—gentle, unguarded. A smile that tells me everything he cannot say here. That I am safe. That he will always stand between me and the world’s cruelty. That I am not alone.
And it hits me—hard, unrelenting—that I love him.
Not because he protects me, though he does. Not because he fights for me, though he always will. But because of the way he looks at me—as though I am not a mistake, not a burden, not the wrong woman in the wrong palace. Because in his eyes, I am enough. More than enough.
I love him because he makes me laugh when I least expect it. Because he listens, truly listens, even when I am clumsy with words. Because he never once asked me to be anyone other than myself. Because when he calls me Rani-sa, my heart forgets to beat.
And because I know, deep down, that without him, my life would feel like it had no anchor. I would drift, endlessly. He grounds me.
My chest feels too small for the rush of it.
He is still smiling at me when he ends the session, his voice calm now. “This matter is closed.”
I can barely breathe. My hands tremble in my lap, hidden from sight. He has no idea what he’s done to me, how irrevocably he has shifted the ground beneath my feet.
For the first time in my life, I feel not just chosen, not just defended—but truly, deeply seen.
And I know with absolute certainty—I will love him: quietly, fiercely, hopelessly.
Forever.